Afghanistan

The American excursion into Afghanistan after 9/11 is coming up for grabs these days along with Michael Moore. Apparently, anyone who questions this war is a far left peacenik and not worthy of a crumb from the great blog bloggers (did THE Big Blogger die in a plane crash in 1957 with Buddy Holly?). Well, I didn't agree with the invasion of Afghanistan in the way in which it was carried out. What we did, as best as I can determine, was to join a rag tag army against another rag tag army and blow the living shit out of them with "daisy cutters."

The BLU-82B/C-130 weapon system, nicknamed Commando Vault in Vietnam and Daisy Cutter in Afghanistan, is a high altitude delivery of 15,000 pound conventional bomb, delivered from an MC-130 since it is far too heavy for the bomb racks on any bomber or attack aircraft. Originally designed to create an instant clearing in the jungle, it has been used in Afghanistan as an anti-personnel weapon and as an intimidation weapon because of its very large lethal radius (variously reported as 300-900 feet) combined with flash and sound visible at long distances. It is the largest conventional bomb in existence but is less than one thousandth the power of the Hiroshima nuclear bomb.

In other words, we used 21st century warfare against a bunch of Taliban in pickup trucks. Not that I have any love for the Taliban, its just that we became enchanted there of killing nameless peasants and this set the stage for Iraq. There must have been fifty ways to do Afghanistan. In my opinion, we picked the wrong one.

And, I like Michael Moore. I liked Bowling for Columbine and I really liked Fahrenheit 9/11. I liked them because they showed the chicanary that exists on the highest level of our government. Unforunately, we will never know the truth about the Afghan War. It will only come out much later in the history books (if we have history books anymore.) But I do resent the pundits telling me what to think about something that I have a right to make my own mind up about.

The Afghan War killed a lot of innocent people(3,000-4000), probably more than were killed in the 9/11 attack. The Iraq war has led to the death of anywhere from 40,000 to 100,000 innocent civilians, many of them children. We didn't have the right to kill those people. It is as simple as that.